Reading Justis’ current blog entry about learning German made me think about the time I spent in German during my vacation to Europe in 2000.
While I was there the only German I learnt was “travel” German. I knew that zeit = time, gate = gatter, bahnhof = station, hauptbahnhog = main station, eingang = entrance and ausgang = exit. The last two being the most important. I even came up with a way to remember which was which. All I had to remember was that eingang started with an “e” just like entrance starts with an “e”. It made complete sense in my mind.
That was until I got home. After explaining this memory trick to one of my friends he replied “but doesn’t exit also start with an “e””. I was foiled. My brain had tricked me into thinking I was so smart when really my memory trick was flawed. From that point on I’ve never trusted my brain 🙂
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Flugzeug is airplane. It’s got to be my favourite German word. Now that I think of it, my German is not really half as rusty as my French and Dutch. But then again, I learned German for two years, while French I only learned for a year and Dutch for a semester.